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Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet (c. 1890)
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Race has been a divisive issue throughout American history, and this impressive helmet tells part of the story.
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Connecticut sculpture
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Records of the Best Products Company provide interesting insights into the history of this iconic sculpture.
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Convict Leasing
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For much of the twentieth century, convicts worked on Virginia’s roads. This practice grew out of the convict lease...
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Craddock-Terry Records Walk on Over to the Museum
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The Craddock-Terry Shoe Company, once the largest employer in Lynchburg, produced lines of boots and shoes which were...
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Diaries
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Do you remember the first time you swam in the ocean? What about the first movie you watched? Moments like those and...
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Duke Ellington at the Mosque
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Late in his career, jazz great Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899–1974) composed three "Sacred Concerts," longer...
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Education in Virginia
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The Virginia Constitution of 1869, passed during Reconstruction, established a statewide system of free public schools...
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Elizabeth Keckley
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Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
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Ella Fitzgerald's False Eyelashes
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Legendary singer and Virginia native Ella Fitzgerald, dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” exhilarated audiences with her...
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Ellen Glasgow’s Broken Heart
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Valentine’s Day cards and the celebrations around the holiday began to escalate during the early twentieth century.
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Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity poster
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The Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity promoted understanding among groups during the tensions of the civil...
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Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
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Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.
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Flooded with Watercolors
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You can find many fine examples of watercolor paintings rendered on paper, manuscripts, maps, and miniatures in the...
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For the Love of Beauty: The Collections of Lora and Claiborne Robins
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Explore nineteenth-century Hudson River School landscape paintings and colonial furniture collected by philanthropists...
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Fraud! Controversy! And neat properties in Virginia: Things you never knew about title insurance
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Did you know that title insurance is almost exclusively an American business? In most industrialized countries...
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Freedom Riders
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In 1961, a small group of white and black volunteers rode public buses into the South to demonstrate that interstate...
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From Horse-Driven to Gas-Fueled Transportation
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![From Horse-Driven to Gas-Fueled Photograph of the Progress Manufacturing Company](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/FromHorseDrivenToGasFueled_Gas%20Pump_1996.178_v1.jpeg.webp?itok=DosrvziL)
This gravity-flow pump (c. 1927), used near Petersburg, Virginia, is evidence of the state’s transition from horse...
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Glee Clubs
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The VMHC has several glee club items in its collection. The earliest item, an 1848 broadside entitled “Rally Whigs”...
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House Tour
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Learn more about Great Hall, Sulgrave Bedroom, Withdrawing Room, Dining Room, and Library at the historic Tudor-style...
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Industrialization in Virginia
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The 1920 census revealed that, for the first time, more Americans were living in urban areas than rural ones. However...